Resistance

Resistances protect you against several harmful effects that you may encounter in the dungeon. A resistance can be either intrinsic, meaning a natural resistance, or extrinsic, meaning a resistance gained by wearing or wielding a certain item. Many intrinsic resistances can only be gained by polymorphing into a certain creature, which is not very convenient.

One of the most common ways to gain intrinsic resistances is through the eating of corpses. Of special note are dragon corpses, as they are guaranteed to give resistances based on their color as specified below, with the exception of yellow, gray and silver. Other monsters also provide intrinsic resistances if their corpses are eaten, details of which can be found in the individual monster descriptions.

Extrinsic resistance is obtained, by definition, through items. Dragon scale mail and the lower dragon scales provide reliable methods for many resistances. Artifacts also often provide resistances, some of which are hard to obtain otherwise.